Looking for an identity card application without all the bells and whistles? INSIDE Contactless may have just the thing. Anticipating the need for faster, lighter-weight versions of so-called ICAO-compliant identity chips, microprocessor producer INSIDE has announced what it calls “ICAO-Lite” applications.

With faster read times and lighter memory options than standard ICAO solutions, such as those required for passports and visas, INSIDE’s MicroPass can create a mid-range series of ID cards and documents that meet ICAO standards, but don’t include as much data storage, which means they won’t cost as much.

ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) has set standards for e-passports and e-visas based upon the use of contactless chip technology with large EEPROM memory requirements to store high-resolution biometric data and other identity information. But these passports, visas and other heavyweight ICAO ID applications represent only about 10% of the overall identity market, leaving a large under served market for ID cards and documents that don’t require as much storage, nor will it cost as much.

According to Moussel, INSIDE has already developed a basic access control application for the MicroPass ICAO-Lite solutions, and preliminary tests indicate a logical data structure read time of less than one second for the 4-kilobyte memory option.